The Public Rental Board (PRB) has been conducting financial literacy workshops within its estates in an effort to empower its tenants.
Minister or Local Government and Housing Maciu Nalumisa commended the initiative because most of the families are within the middle to low-income brackets and they need support.
The latest cohort of this workshop was a group of 36 women from the Macfarlane PRB Estate, Raiwai, who ended their three-day training with a certificate presentation ceremony at Macfarlane Hall on Thursday.
“What we have seen today where most of the participants are women, and one is a male participant. We are empowering the mothers and the females within the estates on how they can improve their living conditions,” Mr Nalumisa said.
“This type of initiative where they get three months financial literacy training will help them to open new opportunities, new doors where they can access finance and grants from Government because most of these mothers who are participants have small businesses.
“This is one way of assisting them to gain more insights into how businesses are managed, how businesses need to be run so they can be successful in the future.”
He said the nature of small businesses have always been that they “exist for only a few months, a few years before they die a slow death”.
“So, this is an opportunity to open their minds on the best ways of how they can manage their business. Especially for those that have a business and for the prospective businessmen and businesswomen in this community who want to venture into business.
“If you look at the requirements by lending institutions, like Fiji Development Bank (FDB), one of the mandatory requirements is for them to have one, business must be registered, they must have also undergone some type of business training.
“These are trainings like business planning, cash flow and its projections. These are some of the basic and core requirements for banks to give loans to the microbusiness entrepreneurs.”
Mr Nalumisa said these financial literacy trainings would give the women an opportunity to acquire finance from lending institutions, and also be able to access grants provided by Government.
While delivering a vote of thanks, participant Makereta Susana Wave said the training helped them learn about financial and management, and innovation in driving business growth and success.
She said the training has also helped them develop new perspective on problem-solving and decision-making.
